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Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Willie Nelson to launch own brand of weed

Willie Nelson. (photo: Tucson Sentinel)

By James Joiner, The Daily Beast

26 March 15

There will be branded bongs and stores, too, as Willie gets out ahead of big industry in states where pot is legal.

illie
Nelson takes a hit of the cigarette-sized vaporizer in his gnarled
hand, exhaling a small cloud, before placing it on the foldout table in
front of us. We’re seated in the cool enclave of his tour bus, at the
entrance to his sprawling property just outside Austin, Texas, which he
has dubbed the town of Luck. Up a hill and around a corner, people are
rocking out at Willie’s own Heartbreaker Banquet, an annual
fundraiser/music festival held concurrently with SXSW.

Now 81, Willie is biding his time before joining
the festivities, and we’re talking about why he puts on the event every
year. In the process, he lets slip that he has something else in the
works: a new brand of weed, called, naturally, Willie’s Reserve.

Pressed on this, he’s either dismissive or coy,
though he does indicate that the smoking implement he has again picked
up is a part of the line. The PR person promises to connect me with
Michael Bowman, a veteran hemp and pot lobbyist who serves as the
fledgling brand’s spokesperson. Two days later, much colder, much more
sober, and back in my native New England, Bowman and I connect by phone.

The discussion is below, but the rub is that the
marijuana world is about to get its first connoisseur brand, edging it
farther from an illegal substance and closer to the realm of fine wines.

So what exactly is Willie’s Reserve?

Well, you know, Willie has spent a lifetime in
support of cannabis, both the industrial hemp side and the marijuana
side. He wants it to be something that’s reflective of his passion.
Ultimately, it’s his. But it was developed by his family, and their
focus on environmental and social issues, and in particular this crazy
war on drugs, and trying to be a bright light amongst this trail as
we’re trying to extract ourselves from the goo of prohibition.

Really he wants it, at the end of the day, to
envelop what his personal morals and convictions are. So from the store
itself to how they’ll work with suppliers and how things are operated,
it’s going to be very reflective of Willie’s life.

Wait, so there’s going to be stores?

Well, yeah, they’re in the making. I think it’s
safe to say that there will be stores that roll out in the states where
marijuana has become legal.

So will there be signature strains that you grow under Willie’s oversight? Or will you sell other people’s strains?

It’ll be both. There will be our own, and then
there will be opportunities for other growers, who meet quality
standards. Let’s just call it the anti-Walmart model. Personally,
internally, that’s what we call it. A certain standard by which growers
have to account for carbon and such, in a way that empowers small
growers who are doing the right thing.

So you’ll also be a distributor of sorts.

It will be like when you walk into a Whole Foods
store. Whole Foods has their 365 brand, or you can buy Stony Brook, or
you can buy Horizon… It’ll all fall under that umbrella of “here’s our
core beliefs, and here’s our mission statement,” and they will be a part
of that, to be a part of us.

How many stores are you looking at opening?

That’s gonna depend… Right now, we’ll focus on the
states where legalization has occurred, and as new states open up,
those opportunities will present themselves on a state-by-state basis.
Or until the feds do something!

When do you plan to open the first one?

In the next calendar year that there will be
movement. As you can imagine, it’s not a problem in states like
Colorado, Washington, Alaska… There’s a pretty clear path on where
retail can go.

OK, so what strains are Willie’s favorites?

You know, I don’t know that! I know that he
clearly has an opportunity to test a number of those, but I can’t tell
you which ones are his favorites.

How did you get involved with Willie?

Well, Annie (Willie’s wife) and I were founding
members of the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance back in 2005. We got to
know each other through that. I was working in D.C. on a number of
renewable energy and sustainability issues. Then, I presently became
introduced to Willie, and had the honor of being able to spend a lot of
time around him.

So how involved is he directly? Is it really mostly his family?

Well, no. This is a culmination of Willie’s
vision, and his whole life. I’m not sure any of us could have predicted
how fast the dominoes would start falling once they started falling (as
far as legalization). And You have the men like Willie who’s been out
there getting arrested, standing up saying what’s right, and not
wavering from that core.

So do you think full-scale legalization will come soon?

I would say all this boils down to math. You can
take the dollars we’re spending (on prohibition), and go to arch
conservatives who are against the ending of prohibition, and say,
“Here’s a math equation. Here’s what we’re spending in drugs, here’s
what we’re doing to destroy peoples lives. And with the ending of
prohibition, we can transition from very energy intensive and chemical
intensive crops to something much more energy-efficient and
environmentally benign, and be creating more products.” What isn’t
conservative about that equation?

Comments

The "arch
conservatives" will reject this argument because they strongly imply
(without overtly stating) that there's something immoral about cannabis
that there isn't about alcohol.They are more comfortable with a drug that promotes aggression than one that tempers it.

"They are more comfortable with a drug that promotes aggression than one that tempers it"

So
true. After all, how will they get kids to fight wars after
experiencing the effects of weed. It doesn't have the same effect as the
roid-rage-induced
robots they manufacture at boot camp where they learn to dehumanize the
"enemy", obey even illegal orders without question and suppress any
hint of empathy which might conflict with the "manly" tough guy image.

Not all, of course, but too many. And they take their cue from the
likes of Rummy, Shrub and Cheney. Our culture of violent and aggressive
sports, computer games, disregard for others and the planet all help to
shape young minds to contribute to a dominant culture where we're
supposed to take what we want, do what we want and care less about the
consequences.

The super wealthy are invested in the military
industrial propaganda complex and make way more money from war and
aggression, controlling our lives and raping the planet. Altruism
doesn't pay as well as sociopathy and there's no power high.

Weed
would contribute to our economy, sustainability, health, and collective
state of mind. It would have so many positive effects.

If we
were to design a society which would produce the most sociopaths as
possible, I'm not sure how much different it would be from what we have.
Thus we have the attacks on education, science, the humanities,
conservation, etc.

Go Willie! With your
grass roots concerts you have a proven track record of caring about and
standing up for We The People, you are an American hero apart from your
stand on legalization of marijuana! Thank you for your activism and your
inclusive, giant, soul! Legalization has been a long time coming, thank
you for helping it along.

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